Chapter 21 Console Commands
twenty-one
console commands
Quick question: Can I be convicted of some sort of war crime for dragging Damien to dinner with my family?
Is that technically torture? I would google it, but I’m afraid to find out the answer.
The fact that he enters my grandmother’s house willingly, one foot in front of the other, is probably a good sign, at least. Reduces my liability.
When I told Victory earlier today, over coffee, that Damien would be coming over, she actually laughed.
She had the decency to feel bad about it, because she’s the sweetest person ever, but I know there is some sadistic part of her that delights in this.
I probably would too, if the roles were reversed.
(Although everyone in her family is extremely cool and they already love Pal, so it’s not really the same.)
I’m probably making a bigger deal of this than I should be. It’s fine. It’ll be fine. We can all be civilized adults about this—
“Thank you for deflowering my granddaughter,” is the first thing Gram says to him when they are introduced, and she says it with complete sincerity.
“Gram, that is wrong on…every single level,” I tell her, hoping my face isn’t flaming red. I can’t even look at Damien right now.
Gram tsks at me. “Shawn doesn’t count,” she says, and I sink into my chair at the table, defeated.
“I don’t even know what that means,” I say to her, though I motion for Damien to take a seat next to me.
“Well, you clearly weren’t that fond of him,” Mom replies, and she glances at Damien like she’s pointing a big foam finger at him that says: But you’re fond of this one.
“I never even met Shawn,” Marie points out, sitting across from me.
“Why are we talking about this, exactly?” I ask impatiently, aimed at no one in particular.
“We’re just saying, it’s nice to see you happy,” Mom adds, “given that you so often have bad luck with your he-friends.”
“You couldn’t even make it two minutes?” I hiss at her.
“With your what?” Damien asks me quietly, and I shake my head at him like, you don’t want to know.
“Well, I don’t know what labels the kids use these days,” Mom says. “Boyfriend? Friend-with-benefits? Queerplatonic partner?”
“How do you even know what that is?” I ask, shocked. (I mean, it’s great that she’s acknowledging platonic relationships, but that’s still a level of commitment I’m not ready for with anyone. Not to mention my very non-platonic feelings about him.)
“I saw it on Reddit.”
“Fine, Damien’s my boyfriend. Are you happy now?” It feels strange calling him that, still.
“Yes.” Mom smiles sweetly. “Though you picked the most boring one.”
We haven’t even started on the pizza yet and already I want to bolt.
“What about suitor?” Damien suggests as we all start pulling slices out of the box on the table. “It sounds fancy and gives the impression that I own a castle.”
This startles a laugh out of Mom, and even Marie seems amused. Gram, of course, is oblivious as she uses both hands to lift a sagging slice of pizza with her chopsticks, contemplating it like she’s not sure how to actually eat it this way.
It’s surprising how quickly Damien seems to settle into the flow of conversation at the table—although flow is probably a stretch, since we jump from topic to topic seemingly at random.
Considering that everyone in my family probably has ADHD—except for Marie because, like I said, she’s a normie—it’s difficult for some people to keep up.
Even Victory, who is certainly not neurotypical, has trouble. But Damien seems fine.
He even agrees to let Mom drag us all to the living room to watch Enola Holmes after dinner, though he holds back his commentary, despite the fact that I can see his jaw clench like he wants to yammer through the whole thing.
Afterwards, however, he and Mom end up discussing their favourite Henry Cavill roles—Geralt and Sherlock Holmes, respectively—until I break up the party because it’s getting late.
I walk him out of the house instead of going straight up to my apartment door from inside, because I don’t want to invite more inappropriate comments from my family, but I expect him to come up with me from the exterior door. He doesn’t.
“You can come in, you know,” I tell him as I hold the door open, though I can feel the bottom of my stomach dropping as I wait for the familiar sting of rejection.
“It’s pretty late, I should probably get back,” he says, seeming more awkward than he has all evening.
“But—I thought—We can do sexy stuff!” I blurt out, but I immediately regret it, both for the words themselves and the incredibly high volume at which they were spoken.
He laughs lightly. “Maybe some other time, okay?”
He leans in like he’s going to kiss me, but then he doesn’t, and it takes me a ridiculously long time to realize he’s waiting for me to kiss him first. Because that’s still my job, apparently. I’m tempted to just leave him hanging, out of spite, but my nerd-girl horny ass gives in way too easily.
It’s a sweet kiss—not even so much as church-tongue, à la Wedding Singer—but it still reaches all the hidden spaces inside me that only he seems to unlock.
“Are you sure you don’t want to?” I ask quietly, and he smiles.
“I never said I don’t want to.”
“Then why—”
“Goodnight, Audrey,” he adds, and gives me a gentle kiss on my cheek before taking a step back. “And we should start planning our speedrun soon.”
I blink at him in disbelief as he turns around with a wave and heads off towards the streetcar.
Why can’t real life romance be like in a video game? I could look up a wiki or walkthrough that tells me how to make all the right choices for the outcome I want—or better yet, use console commands to advance the quest line and save time.
~ set quest:18389damienromance stage:2857sexystuff
I’m grateful when Victory and Pal agree to meet me for an Emergency Friend Support meeting the next day. We’re at the pub, because I think it will be easier to have this conversation with at least one pint in me first, and the middle of the afternoon on a Sunday is pretty quiet here.
I’d already told Victory about Damien, how he and I are dating now, how he’s technically my boyfriend now, so I (correctly) assume that Pal has been updated as well.
It wasn’t that long ago that I would have refused to let them come along for this, but now I’m eager to seek their advice as well as Victory’s.
“Meeting the fam didn’t go well?” Pal asks, apparently having been filled in on that part, too.
“No, that was actually fine,” I tell them. “Like, shockingly okay.”
“Your grandma and mom didn’t say anything inappropriate?” Victory asks, frowning in confusion.
“Oh, no, they absolutely did,” I assure her. “But it was fine.”
“So, what’s the problem, exactly?” Her tone is even and commanding, but not impatient.
I stumble over my words as I explain to both of them—in vague terms—how Damien had come back to my place earlier in the week and things…happened. But when I tried to invite him up for a repeat of said things—or whatever—he turned me down. Even though he’d said he wouldn’t.
“I thought you didn’t actually like sex,” Pal says. They aren’t judgmental about it, but I still feel a spike of shame. Not because I’m asexual and don’t like sex—because I’m supposed to be asexual and yet I wonder if I might like it anyway.
“I don’t really,” I say. “Or, I haven’t in the past. I don’t know. I’ve never even wanted to, before.”
“What about—” Victory begins, though she cuts herself off, but I know why. She was going to ask about Cameron, but I still haven’t told Pal about all of that.
I shake my head. “Not even then.” I may have liked the idea of kissing him, at the time, but it didn’t occur to me to consider more than that. It wasn’t even a speck on the horizon of possibility.
“But Glasses knows this, right?” Pal asks. “That you haven’t been into that sort of thing before, I mean.”
“Maybe…”
They nod and pick up their nearly empty glass. “He’s probably trying to respect that,” they say. “Not rush you.”
“But it was my idea! I’m the one rushing!”
“Is it what you really want, though?” Victory asks. “Or is it just what you think you’re supposed to do when you’re dating someone?”
“I’m not stupid!”
“No one’s saying you’re stupid, Aud,” Pal adds calmly. “But you just told us that you don’t even know if you like sex.”
“So?”
“So that sounds like you don’t actually know what you want yet. Which is okay,” they continue. “You don’t have to do that stuff right away, or ever.”
“Well, how will I ever know if I like having sex with him if he won’t even have sex with me first?” I say, trying to sound mature about this even though saying these words out loud makes my cheeks burn.
Victory looks at me sympathetically. “Have you talked to him about it?”
“I don’t know.” I rub a hand over my face. “Sort of? Maybe?”
As I recall, I word-vomited some things in a panic about wanting him to fuck me—I’m still eternally cringing about that—and then last night I blurted out that we could do sexy stuff, whatever that means. Yikes.
“God, I’m such an awkward loser,” I whine, covering my face with both hands now. I notice that neither of them jumps in to correct me. “I can’t talk about this stuff without freaking out, so I don’t know how I’ll ever convince him that I’m cool with it.”
“You know what I think?” Pal says with a smirk. “You need to do it over the phone.”
“You mean have this conversation with him?”
“That, and…” They make a motion over the table with one hand, like a DJ scratching a record.
It takes me a full fifteen seconds of blank staring to realize what they’re suggesting. “Oh my god, no!”
They shrug, like they don’t know why I’m freaking out about this. “Just if it’s awkward face-to-face. Break the ice a little.”
“It’s not a terrible idea,” Victory agrees, and I’ve never felt more betrayed by her in my life.
“That’s—That’s not an actual thing that people do!” I sputter. “I mean, maybe if they’re long-distance, but we live in the same city—”
Victory and Pal exchange a look that is at once incredibly guilty and yet not at all ashamed.
“Oh my god,” I mutter down at my empty glass.
“You don’t have to do anything you’re uncomfortable with,” Victory assures me.
“Yeah, and at least he’s not pushing you to do something you don’t want,” Pal adds. They hold up one finger. “Because that is a red flag, and you should GTFO if that’s the case.”
“I know,” I say with a nod. Because I do know. I know on some level that whatever I decide is right for me will be fine. But it’s good to hear it from people I trust, anyway.
I can also see their point, about it being a good way to break the ice. But who under the age of forty actually uses the phone anyway?
Though what other choice do I have? Talk about this in person?
Ugh.